BAM!!! Elizabeth felt her head grow dizzy after slamming against her bedroom wall at full speed. With the shock of meeting that arctic wolf with eye contact still ensnaring her body, she could do nothing to break her fall as she fell on her back from the rebound of crashing into a wall. Yet, the pain from both the crash and fall didn"t seem to register, as the image of that majestic wolf and the complexity of the situation now developing, took hold of her; manifesting as a stream of notifications from her functions.[Side Quest 6: An Inkling Remnant Of The Past (Incomplete)
Difficulty: Incomprehensible to the user
Objective) Make contact with that ghostly figure of your past.
Optional Objective) Figure out why it appeared in the first place.
Description: Zhenlang, a figure you"ve not seen since your descent has appeared once more. There"s no mistaking him as only he could flaunt around such peerlessly clean and soft white fur with blue highlights. Yet, his reappearance is just too sudden and unfathomable. How could he find you when you should essentially be erased from history in the cultivation world? More so, with less than a week elapsing! Moreover, seeing his body"s state… an ominous feeling looms over your soul as the unthinkable crosses your mind.
Deadline: None
Pending…
Battle Summaries
Main Quests
Training Summaries]
As Elizabeth lay breathless on the floor of her room, heaving and panting to catch her breath, she actually had no thoughts on browsing the things left pending on her status. At this very moment, she utterly confused with regards to the description of that sixth sidequest of hers. Zhenlang? Was that supposed to be the name of the arctic wolf she saw? She was supposed to know of the wolf personally? Moreover, tell that something was wrong with its body???
Not only was that wolf completely foreign to her, but it also looked to be in pretty "d.a.m.n-well" condition if Elizabeth had to be the one to judge. That beast could probably cause those that the peak of the Mortal Realm to s.h.i.t their pants on sight, yet it was somehow not at its peak state? Shivers and cold sweat plagued Elizabeth"s body as she tried to envision an even more mighty looking beast.
She quickly got over the misgiving feelings she herself produced as she recalled the intimidating atmosphere around the wolf, but decided to keep laying on the floor until she no longer breathed like a sprinter at the end of their ropes. Still, she was very tired from the nerve-wracking experience entering the Shadow Realm for the first time brought her and now, the first thing she wanted to do after returning was to properly clean up.
Before leaving her room and going to the dojo"s bathhouse though, Elizabeth had to rinse off the dirt and blood covering her. It would be very "unusual" for her to just walk around the dojo in her current state, as to everyone else, she had just spent an entire day locked in her room. Elizabeth walked over to the small bathroom in her room and used the sink to clean off most of the blood and dirt that had stuck to her throughout the final chase.
She "unequipped" her armor along with the unfinished pieces of Quartzite she had refined as arm and leg braces, and put on a random set of ordinary clothes before leaving her room. Regrettably, her room"s bathroom only had a sink and toilet; no shower or bathtub. Thus, it was off to the bathhouse to clean her tension away!
…
Elizabeth walked out of her room and into the hallway of the dojo"s second floor and the quiet and safety of it all brought about conflicting feelings. As she made her way over to the bathhouse, the stark difference between the Forest of Beginnings and the modern world were almost too extreme for Elizabeth to adjust.
It was to the point where even now that she was back to the normal world, being out and about made her subconsciously grow vigilant; as if something or someone was planning to attack her at any moment. In this fashion, Elizabeth cautiously eyed everything she pa.s.sed by including the furniture and people until she made it to the bathhouse.
Elizabeth entered the changing area and put away her clothes before she took a clean towel and entered the bathing area. As she entered said bathing area, she grew incomparably happy to find herself alone as the vigilance possessing her lessened. She gave out the lightest sigh, encompa.s.sing a great portion of the tension her body had acc.u.mulated thus far as another death-march began.
Scrub… Scrub… Scrub… All those oily and sticky byproducts she couldn"t clean out with the water from her room"s sink began to finally fall, as Elizabeth took a long and careful approach to exterminate any and all instances of filth remaining on her. As Elizabeth slowly uncovered the thinnest layer of filth on her body, she noticed one of the benefits her 100% completion of the Mortal Realm brought her; softer and smoother skin.
In truth, that was about the most worthless benefit achieving perfection in the Mortal Stage would grant, but nonetheless, it was only now that Elizabeth noticed. Along with the softness and smoothness, there was also the transformation of its composition to become much harder to damage or tear. And the benefits with regards to one"s foundation and cultivation were even more extreme….
Elizabeth stopped feeling up her own skin as she had been eyeing the hot tub at the other end of the bathing area and had been distracted by her discovery. The steaming water of the bathtub called to her body like that of a succubus on mortal men, and with not a shred of hesitation, Elizabeth dragged herself over to the tempting tub.
As she slid into the hot water, the comfort she felt in the form of melding into the water put her in a drowsy mood and with not a chance to fight back, her body followed through with both her conscious and subconscious desires. Like a seasoned veteran, Elizabeth put her towel on her head and submerged her body to all but the top of her head — up to the base of her nose — before fully appreciating this chance to relax as her eyes closed.
As the seconds turned to minutes, with Elizabeth virtually sleeping in the hot tub, she had absolutely no clue what kind of calamity she had set for herself, as an una.s.suming Sun just happened to be entering the bathhouse at this very moment.
The poor guy had no idea what kind of sight he would witness, as his mind was just as preoccupied with training as Elizabeth"s was with regards towards surviving. Sun had just finished training himself up through the entirety of the Mortal Stage and even through part of the p.a.w.n Stage. His training in Qi wasn"t at all like Elizabeth"s as their methods of obtaining Inner Strength was completely different.
Whereas Elizabeth trained in the path of a Mage, striving to develop Magic, she derived her Inner Strength from meditation. Conversely, Sun, as well as all the other martial pract.i.tioners in the Mortal Realm, got their Qi from galvanizing their bodies" vitality; in other words, more power from the fleshy body. Though Qi was theoretically the superior of the two, Martial Qi of those in the Mortal Realm wasn"t "True Qi."
Unlike true Qi… pract.i.tioners of the Martial Path took on a great burden by practicing before reaching the Spiritual Realm as they essentially burned away their lifeforce after every use. Granted, just cultivating granted them a longer lifespan, but if they fought long and hard enough, it wouldn"t matter if they couldn"t reach the Spiritual Realm before they wasted themselves.
The point being, for Sun to get to where he stood now, cultivating from scratch to the late-phase of the p.a.w.n Stage, he had to have worked his body for a long and hard time; to be specific, from the time he had separated from Jane after talking to Elizabeth, up until just a couple moments ago, he had been galvanizing his Qi through shadow boxing in a mish-mash of Muay Thai.
Now, after feeling his progress in gathering Qi start to diminish, as it caught up to his body"s level. He finally left his room and decided to take a break. It was still very early on in the day, so obviously there would barely be any people, if any at all, bathing at the bathhouse. Still, Sun wasn"t an idiot, so he followed common courtesy — unlike a certain sleeping demon — as he glanced at his watch before entering the bathhouse.
While the bathhouse operated under the traditional unis.e.x designation, meaning anyone of any gender COULD technically bath whenever they pleased, because the dojo was stationed in the Americas, there was an unwritten rule that everyone followed: men bathed at odd times, while the females bathed at the even times.
This "hidden rule" was very clearly defined by Jane while she showed Elizabeth around the dojo"s residential area. But, it must have just "pa.s.sed" her mind, or maybe she had forgotten that she wasn"t a guy, for the umpteenth time. Anyways… Time stopped for no one, and as Sun so erroneously chose to enter the bath at this odd time of the day, he set off the trigger for Elizabeth wake up.